The following social events are being held in the School this week in the Jack Cole coffee area:-
Drinks 🍷 and snacks 🍰 available at all events, so please come along and join us!
If you are a new Undergraduate or Postgraduate Taught student to the School of Computer Science, you are invited to the STACS Welcome BBQ outside the Jack Cole Coffee Area on Friday 13th September 5.30pm-7.30pm.
The usual BBQ favourites will be available from the grill and refreshments will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there!
Women in Computer Science is back and are excited to invite you to the first coffee break of the academic year. This is a perfect opportunity for incoming students and returning students to meet each other and academic staff in the School.
Event Details:
Chat, coffee and snacks available!
We look forward to welcoming all our students to the School for the new academic year.
Details of the events for staff and students scheduled for the week commencing 9th September are in the Computer Science Orientation Programme.
More information on the University Orientation and Induction Events provides students with an overview of the University, and important dates to mark in your calendar.
On behalf of the school, we would like to congratulate Di Wu supervised by Blesson Varghese, who has passed his PhD viva with minor corrections.
Thanks to Professor Graham Kirby who was internal examiner and Dr Chris Anagnostopoulos from Glasgow as external examiner.
Congratulations to Jordina Frances de Mas for passing her viva subject to minor corrections!
Many thanks to Didier Galmiche for serving as the external examiner and Ruth Hoffman as the internal examiner.
On 11th April, the School of Computer Science at St Andrews will host our Doors Open event. We will be thrilled to welcome any and all visitors from outwith the School, whether you are locally based, from elsewhere in the UK, or from overseas.
As a rapidly growing school, we are looking to build relationships with new partners and are keen to find out how we can help you, your companies, and/or organisations to solve problems and improve processes.
Our Doors Open Day will have over 60 individual exhibits and activities. Our presenters will be our staff and students, with representation from 1st year undergrad through to PhD students, academic and technical members of staff.
Please register here if you would like to attend to enable us to order sufficient food!
Applications are sought from passionate, creative and outgoing students interested in using their skills and interests in tabletop gaming in application to research in computer science, Human Computer Interaction, and User Experience design. This exciting PhD project will see the worlds of TTRPG and computing coincide to produce meaningful interactions to support the design, development and deployment of technology, whether from the software level, or at the pipeline level in support of those who will become developers and designers.
Tabletop Role Playing Games (TTRPG) allow the player to immerse themselves in a world where anything can happen — within the rules. You can become someone new, fight demons, play out exciting and speculative storylines, all with the help of your party. This ability to place yourself in the life of another person (or ethereal being) resonates with principles of User Experience Design (UX) where usability experts strive to understand the impact their application or interface might have on a hypothetical audience. There is also the potential for this technique to be used in computer science education, to enable students to explore real world design and programming processes, and the ethical challenges that ensue with the creation of new software and hardware.
The difficulty in eliciting requirements from users, especially users with complex interaction needs, is well-established in literature (Ferreira et al., 2019; Heumader et al., 2018; Pacheco et al., 2018). The process is one that is primarily an ongoing act of interpretation in which user ‘wants’ are translated from interviews, observation, focus groups and such into actionable ‘needs’ that can then be addressed in further design and development. The literature thus makes a distinction between ‘gathering’ requirements – as in collecting together feedback – versus ‘eliciting’ requirements, which is a a more participatory form of ongoing interpretation. As noted by Pacheco et al. the process is highly contextual and its complexities are influenced by everything from the project, the organisation, the environment, and the prior-experiences and skill-sets of all involved parties. It is also dependent on the requirements elicitation techniques employed.
Continue reading
As part of their efforts to enhance privacy and trust on the Web, many applications need to be able to determine whether or not a relationship exists between different entities. For example, it is desirable for web browsers to be able to determine that two domain names are under the same administrative control, such that cookies and other data can be safely shared between them. While determining these relationships might be easy for humans, it is impossible to do so algorithmically.
This project will explore approaches to the defining and enforcing organisational boundaries on the Internet. These approaches will consider the technical challenges, balancing those with user behaviour and expectations, and regulatory considerations. This will include identifying use cases, evaluating and measuring existing and proposed approaches, and developing and implementing novel techniques. Where appropriate, this will involve engagement with standards development organisations, including the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Continue reading
The School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews is offering a number of PhD studentships for 3.5 years of study in our doctoral programme. Funding is available to cover tuition fees for UK, EU and international students, as well as living expenses (a stipend of £18,622 per annum, or the standard UKRI stipend if it is higher). We offer two types of studentship:
The School of Computer Science is a centre of excellence for computer science teaching and research, with staff and students from Scotland and all parts of the world. It is a member of the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA).
We are looking for highly motivated research students willing to be part of a diverse and supportive research community. Applicants must hold a good BSc or MSc in Computer Science, or a related area appropriate for their proposed topic of study.
We especially encourage female applicants and underrepresented minorities to apply. The University of St Andrews is committed to promoting equality of opportunity for all, which is further demonstrated through its working on the Gender and Race Equality Charters and being awarded the Athena SWAN award for women in science, HR Excellence in Research Award and the LGBT Charter.
1st February 2024.
Any PhD application received through the University PGR application system by the deadline will be automatically considered for these studentships. There is no need for a separate application. Note, however, that if you are applying for a CSC Scholarship then you cannot be considered for these School studentships due to conflicting application dates.
We strongly advise applicants to contact potential supervisors to discuss their research proposal before applying. Historically, applications with no named supervisor have been much less likely to result in an offer.
The School’s main research groups are Artificial Intelligence, Computer Systems, Human-Computer Interaction, and Programming Languages. You can find further details at https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/computer-science/research/groups/. A list of existing faculty and areas of research can be found at https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/computer-science/prospective/pgr/supervisors/. All supervisors listed on this page may be contacted directly to discuss possible projects. You can define your own project or discuss a project currently on offer. Some highlighted potential areas or projects offered by supervisors include:
Full details on how to apply can be found at https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/computer-science/prospective/pgr/how-to-apply/
Application enquiries can be directed to pg-admin-cs@st-andrews.ac.uk.
